11x11 (13. 268)

epistemic cocoon: filters, bubbles, synthetic friends and the personal theatre of disinformation—via Web Curios  

no yokes: a quarter of a century in market fluctuations  

semantic drift: the etymological and entomological history of the word drone  

belated blogoversary: Kottke turns twenty-eight  

wet shelter: the house photographer of the aid mission in the crypt of St Botolph’s 

le salaire de la peur: in a demonstration project to expand research partnerships with other laboratories, CERN attempts to transport a microscopic payload of antimatter for the first time—see previously  

caged lorries: Singapore, despite pressure from businesses that rely on migrant labour, is moving towards banning the dehumanising way workers are transported to job sites  

unbirthday: salutations and reflections from veteran blogger Diamond Geezer  

áfram með smjörið: delightful Icelandic idioms—via friend of the blog Nag on the Lake  

what’s that got to do with the price of tea in china: US egg cost down forty-two percent—hope it was all worth it  

ai is african intelligence: the exploited workers who tutor and moderate chatbots fight back

any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes (13. 256)

Revisiting an classic episode, Planet Money repackages a clutch of workplace adages, observations and eponymous laws as potential indictments of office culture—with an inflammatory demotivational poster fit for framing in one’s breakroom, I could cite several poster children for each among my own coworkers and colleagues. Particularly relatable was Goodhart’s Law (see previously, see also), reformulated from the above as when a measure becomes a target, it ceases being a good metric, resonating with how we’re encouraged to cook the books to get fill-time down and play a numbers game that doesn’t reflect other extenuating factors though exceeds the standard—in other words, those who know the indicators will game them. Also depressingly resonant was the Peter Principle, a management concept articulated from intended satire that individuals within a hierarchy tend to be promoted to “a level of respective incompetence,” that a worker’s talents are recognised and advanced through the ranks and find themselves eventually in over their heads with expectations and responsibilities outside of their skill-set, plateauing at usually conspicuous placement with a supervisory role. The phenomenon which Germans call “falling up the ladder” is also addressed in the source material by Canadian educator Laurence Peter and screenwriter Raymond Hull when the progression seemingly does not stop despite graduated ineptitude, this apparent exception is an example of “percussive sublimation” and a move from one unproductive role to another, with other instances of pseudo-promotion being the “lateral arabesque,” retaining an individual to buy their silence but moving them out of the spotlight with a longer job title.

growth-hacking paradigms (13. 247)

As a bit of a vindicating corollary to a previous post on business jargon, we are referred to via Slashdot, a longitudinal study by Cornell university cognitive psychologist Shane Littrell introducing their Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale (CBSR) as a gauge of susceptibility to empty rhetoric, corresponding with overall poor job performance and a deficit of practical decision-making skills. Although BS can happen in any context, it can be especially fraught in the workplace where such lingo is an institutional protection, structurally built in, to cushion misdirection and feign accomp-lishment, and so for their experiment for insight into how such language is reenforced and paradoxically is a poor surrogate for job management skills, Littrell commissioned a LLM to generate corporate soundbites and had a large sample of workers to rate the business savvy of such phrases revealing quite a knowledge gap, enticed with what passes as transformative, inspired and visionary. More at the links above.

let’s take this offline (13. 239)

Though properly, despite its obscurity to outgroups of a given profession or industry and reputation as gatekeeping and kind of an insult to expert language, jargon is not the same as non-technical corporate lingo, we rather enjoyed this omnibus of laments and grievances of the register of vicious terminology that has seeped into common-parlance as reviled words and phrases. I think I am guilty during a meeting or in an email of using many of these—except for the most egregious in synergy and let’s circle back, most of them euphemistic in nature covering up a lack of actionable knowledge and blunting direction or a method for looking like a team-player and acknowledging, repackaging previous contributions. What do you think? Tell us your most odious malapropisms and mixed-metaphors.

easy money (13. 236)

Born on this day in 1926, Alan Greenspan served on the US Federal Reserve board of governors from 1987 to the 2006, under presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush, the chairman reappointed after each four year term and advising on monetary policy. Despite a subdued public demeanour, the press accorded the long serving economist celebrity status as a strong advocate for international trade, though he courted many critics who cite his low interest rates and increased cash supply for creating the dot-com bubble and the subprime mortgage crisis that lead to worldwide recession—occurring shortly after he left office—and blame Greenspan for encouraging George W Bush to reengage Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein for the sake of stability in the global oil supply. A fan and personal friend of objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand, Greenspan dated anchor woman Barbara Walters in the late 1970s and is married to journalist Andrea Mitchell (matrimonial ceremony officiated by Ruth Bader Ginsburg) and currently runs a financial consulting firm with several honorary posts with investment banks. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ) plus dismantling the US department of education 

thirteen years ago: folk-neuroscience 

fourteen years ago: slow news days 

fifteen years ago: a trip to Fulda 

sixteen years ago: the US census 

culcitology (13.214)

Vis-à-vis the prior post, we thoroughly enjoyed this deep-dive from host Alie Ward that serendipitously was next in my feed on the history and craft of quilting—the study from the Latin for pillows and bedding featuring an expert panel discussing all aspects of textile art from familial traditions and pedagogy, therapeutic aspects, documentation, memorial, encoded messages, politics to protest. The overview of the ethnography of the ungated art and transition from a commercial, male dominated activity to domestic labour and women’s work (see also) and the social movements that grew out of quilting-bees and sewing-circles is particularly fascinating. There’s even a bonus bespoke pattern and a tutorial at the website up top.

habitual app loyalty (13. 207)

An ominous think-piece by a research group and consulting firm specialising in insights in “transformative megatrends” has rattled markets and businesses, lurching from anxiety over an AI bubble to foreboding over what they have wrought delivering mass redundancies across industries. The Singularity feared is not a runaway super-intelligence or a rogue system fighting for self-preservation at all costs but rather autonomous agents that make for frictionless exchanges and circumvent the economic inefficiencies that businesses rely on. Like the disruption that came for publishers and legacy outlets with the democratisation of the internet, the new gatekeepers model is based on margins and middlemen with clearinghouses for payments and facilitating connecting consumers with services, ride-sharing, food deliveries, travel arrangements, but agentive AI could potentially bypass and disarticulate all those supply-chains and providers by arranging the logistics—in theory in this scenario—as a downward spiral in the fintech and gig sectors that has disastrous implications for the broader economy. More from the Guardian’s Aisha Down and Dan Milmo at the link up top.

cipheritis (13. 203)

An alleged mental disorder, reportedly diagnosed by German physicians, though with no clinical description and a paucity of case studies, zero stroke dysfunction was experienced by patients during the period of hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic (see previously here and here) with otherwise well-balanced individuals compelled to write out unending strings of zeros (see also here and here, also called ciphers after the Arabic root) as a coping mechanism for the rapid and exponential increasing of prices and depreciation of paper marks when the buying-power of one’s wages became essentially worthless by the end of one’s shift. Most common among those working in finance, accounting and sales, sufferers also had a tendency to retreat into complicated mental computations whose solutions were logarithmically fleeting.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a catalogue of historic dice and card games (with synchronopticæ) plus Germany votes

twelve years ago: more secession sessions, Kurt Vonnegut’s story shapes plus more on the mysterious Voynich manuscript

thirteen years ago: external threats, UK creditworthiness downgraded plus grammar and financial readiness

fourteen years ago: au revoir mademoiselle plus reforming the German welfare system

fifteen years ago: budget crunch in Wisconsin 

sixteen years ago: church elections 

seventeen years ago: ornate spam 

9x9 (13. 188)

all lawful uses: Pentagon labels Anthropic AI a supply-chain risk for refusing to activate Skynet  

digital humanities: platforms, ethnographically, can only deliver two out of the three trilemmas  

skimo: newest Olympic sport combines uphill and downhill action 

⻢: etymologies of the year of the Fire Horse—more here 

rainbow push coalition: tributes for Jesse Jackson (RIP)  

the great breath: Christian Waller’s theosophical fairy tales 

sơng: author Ocean Vuong is suspiciously talented as a photographer as well  

project cardinal: turnaround management, corporate restructuring codenames and other euphemisms 

most energy storage solutions: inspired by DNA, a liquid forming molecular bonds can hold potential heat for months until it’s needed

synchronoptica

one year ago: protests against DOGE (with synchronopticæ) plus European emergency summit convened immediately following the Munich Security Conference

thirteen years ago: regional franchises plus more former enclaves and exclaves

fourteen years ago: the neocolonialism of finance 

fifteen years ago: academic dishonesty in the German government 

sixteen years ago: upcoming trips 

spine-tingling (13. 171)

Our thanks to Boing Boing for the education in book finishers’ craft with gauffered edging, gilt indentations along the page and decorative elements (called pallets)—the French version of the Germanic root that gives us waffle and wafer (see also) and means to plait or crimp—to revisit this highly satisfying demonstration of expert rebinding and book tooling skills, lovingly restoring an old volume with a pristine jacket, titled, ornamented with inlays and onlays and complete with marbled endpapers.

rebinding old book into a treasure
by u/Maddiee7diary in SatisfyingAF

*     *     *     *     *

synchronoptica

one year ago: unilateral peace negotiations for Ukraine (with synchronopticæ), malicious compliance plus the return of Enron

thirteen years ago: the retirement of Pope Benedict, furnished quarters plus architectural embellishments 

fourteen years ago: Nazis on the Moon 

ada violation (13. 139)

Not impacting the US general public and only a cadre of government workers left on the payroll, the partial government shutdown which began on midnight Friday is being characterised by many agencies as a “soft-lapse” and absent guidance or flagrantly ignoring the Anti-Deficiency Act, enacted by congress to prevent incurring obligations and or making commitments in excess of appropriated funds codified by congress during the reconstruction era following the US civil war to attempt to counter coercive over-budgeting encouraged by the executive branch to deplete fiscal expenditures prior to being replenished, this disdain—on Groundhog Day—of the regular ritual of furlough, exceptions and exemptions is yet (regardless if it lasted a weekend or weeks or tardy over time-zones) another sign that the Trump administration is shrugging of norms and statute. Guidance has not trickled down the hierarchy for many and are instructed to conduct business as usual until further notice, considering that many were written up for such transgressions during the last one, incurring more debt without backing and causing conflict in the casual chaos.

let’s circle back (13. 087)

NPR’s Word of the Week feature gives us the history and etymology of the rather repugnant corpospeak buzzword synergy, which although seemingly a recent construction of workplace jargon championing teamwork and the sanctity of being in the office, its roots go back to Greek books of the New Testament signifying cooperation in συνεργία (see also) amongst fellow workers striving towards a common goal. Though not exactly common parlance, it came into use during religious debates regarding salvation during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation as a compromise and reconciliation of relationship to the Church and congregants—at least for some—and then again as a counterpoint to co-morbidity in the medical sense of treatments equalling more than the sum of their parts, as opposed to making one part of the body healthy at the expense of others. By the mid-twentieth century, popularised in part by the writings of Buckminster Fuller, though with a specific meaning of “binding energies” and didn’t denote the familiar, reviled vagaries of the conference room until corporate America entered the conversation.

the technate of north america (13. 054)

Given the recent invasion by the United States on the southern limit of this hypothetical map of a continental federation, a sphere of influence, self-sufficient and only requiring minimum trade with outsiders, aligned with the recently published Trump Corollary, the technocracy movement, founded chiefly by engineer Howard Scott after World War I, flourishing in the minds of many as a genuine alternative political ideology, more popular than fascism or communism, up through the Great Depression and the entry of the US in World War II—though suffering many internecine breakups and dogmatists at odds in the steering committees of the various groups and factions under this umbrella, just like Scott’s own falling out with the unionists and the IWW that first fostered his ideas, has again been garnering attention. Understandably with propagandised charts showing US influence stretching from Greenland to the north, through Panama all the way down to Venezuela, people are worried that Trump may make good on his threats of annexation by force, but Technocracy Incorporated, administered by besuited technocrats with legions of working-class followers, including one chiropractor (a suspect pseudo-science itself) from Regina, Joshua Norman Haldeman, the maternal grandfather of Elon Musk (members were required to adopt numbers in place of names, which may have inspired great-grandson XÆ A-12 as well as other notions of Musk’s), was not premised on utopian technology that would make labour superfluous and end scarcity but rather its opposite, suggesting that progress would never outpace population-growth and that the monetary system needed reform—proposing an energy theory of value to replace the price based systems of economy, privileging exchange and property and believed to perpetuate market inefficiencies. Energy input and output would replace fiat currency as a metric of labour and worth, non-fungible rationed allotments distributed to regulate the flow of energy that could not be bartered outside the system—tied to an individual’s productive credit account—and having an expiration date to discourage hoarding and accumulation of capital, as a form of technological feudalism.

9x9 (13. 032)

christmas day storm: heavy rains and landslides batter Los Angeles area  

vertex summary: holiday reception by renowned fiddler in Nova Scotia cancelled due to AI search erroneous labelling the performer a sex-offender—via Super Punch  

soft cell: astronaut Tibor Kapu debuts geometries that can only exist in microgravity aboard the ISS  

high holidays: an assortment of newspaper clippings on confiscated marijuana Christmas trees of yesteryear  

autocoup: a viral fake video of an overthrow in Paris is throwing the government in turmoil  

daemon est deus inversus: the occult imagination of W B Yeats  

winterval: seasonal breaks and the signal most observed public holiday—maybe not the one you’re thinking of—from Quantum of Sollazzo  

neighbourhood watch: AI powered app issues false crime alerts across US, terrorising residents  

spirit of the season: US launches strikes against ISIS militants in Nigeria—accused of persecuting Christians 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ), Wild Strawberries (1957) plus a classic from Goorge Harrison

thirteen years ago: an antique Bible 

fifteen years ago: Boxing Day and Second Christmas 

ho ho hustle (13. 025)

We quite enjoyed this McSweeney’s piece by contributors Anne Marie Wonder and Madeleine Trebenski imagining the ensemble of characters of secular Christmas celebrations taking on a side-gigs to make ends meet in this economy. Missus Claus is a trad-wife influencer and Heatmiser has monetised his podcast, hawking testosterone supplements between segments advocating how real men don’t ask permission to commit arson, and you know Dasher—or rather DoorDasher, of course.

synchronoptica

one year ago: fifty plus years of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn (with synchronopticæ) plus the etymology of fruitcake

seven years ago: the patron saint of Iceland, a glitter mystery plus the Extinction Rebellion

eight years ago: Project Blue Book plus motto misappropriation

nine years ago: walled-gardens 

ten years ago: international holiday customs, a Christmas ghost story, an embarrassing product recall plus a yuletide greeting

eleven years ago: Ship of Theseus 

thirteen years ago: mapping South Sudan, US austerity plus winter flooding

sixteen years ago: winter driving 

department of the interior (12. 987)

Having encountered some of these brilliant and iconic Depression Era posters sponsored by FDR’s Works Projects Administration, we appreciated learning about the landscape architect and graphic designer behind the strategic and unified tourism campaign to promote US national and state parks, Dorothy Waugh, through an exhibit of seventeen of her placards—particularly at such a fraught time for these preserves, understaffed, subject to revisionist histories, corporate encroachment and surge-pricing. Due to the scope and scale of her work for the Civilian Conservation Corps’ infrastructure projects for the parks system, Waugh went from being the sole artist to hiring and supervising a team of draughtsmen and also produced easy to follow diagrams and designs, most workers unable to interpret blueprints and formal specifications, for the construction picnic areas and campsite conveniences as well as other basic structures. Much more from Print magazine at the link above.

building & loan (12. 886)

Whilst calling “affordability” a hoax perpetrated by Democrats and blathering on about how much grocery, energy costs and inflation is down (a sentiment contrary to economic realities and one that the public is not buying), Trump seeming undermined his own argument with a multi-pronged approach to lowering consumer prices first by directing the justice department to investigate price gouging and collusion in the meat-packing industry that has made beef more expensive, reversing tariffs on some staple imports—plus a promise to issue individual stimulus cheques from duties dividends, through revenues won’t satisfy promised payouts, direct payments as opposed to extended subsidies for health insurance coverage premiums to encourage Americans to become entrepreneurs in their wellness and most controversially the introduction of a fifty-year mortgage to make homeownership achievable to more with nominally lower monthly outlays—though over a much long period, deferring outright tenancy and building equity, with more going towards interest rather than the principal.

legislation considered pursuant to a rule (12. 875)

Following Sunday night’s vote in the senate which saw eight political safe Democrats side with Republicans to overcome the filibuster threshold on a bill to reopen the US federal government after a stalemate of over forty days, in exchange for the protecting the right of the Government Accountability Office to sue the president for misappropriation of funds against the wishes of congress and a hollow promise to vote on whether to extend expiring health care subsidies (citing hardships and potential ruined holidays that were nonetheless being redressed by other means), which was the instigator of the standoff in the first place and now seems all for nothing, a self-own when the Democrats were ahead with their strategy and rather chuffed over a slate of election victories, the measure was returned to the house of representatives, recalling them from a recess of seven weeks to avoid the swearing in of an Arizona member whose vote in favour of releasing the Epstein files could force the matter to be brought to a floor vote, despite the speaker’s directive. Congress was recalled, again delaying the swearing in of the new representative and focusing on the legislation that they were just handed, with the bi-partisan oversight committee releasing a tranche of new documents, including some rather incriminating emails that refute Trump’s claim over a split with the pedophile and disgraced financial fixer. Whilst members on both sides of the aisle are enraged about postponing the discharge petition, it has also come to light Ghislaine Maxwell, already serving her sentence in a minimum security, is seeking a full commutation for her crimes. The president for his first meaningful interaction with the legislative branch outside of approving cabinet nominations, has cleared his schedule to sign the continuing resolution once it reaches his desk. The house is set to vote later in the afternoon but the entire ordeal is poised to repeat at the end of January when funding again runs out and it remains unclear whether the bill will pass, the Republican caucus only able to suffer no more than three defections and a provision to outlaw hemp-based products may cause some from agricultural states who have grown reliant on this industry to vote against the measure as it stands and torpedo its chances.

flow control (12. 859)

Due to the ongoing US government shutdown with thousands of air-traffic controllers compelled to work as emergency essential employees for delayed pay—once appropriations are approved but have already gone seven weeks without a pay cheque, having to pay for transportation, childcare and manage all other household finances without income—the strain the situation is putting on staff, the Federal Aviation Administration is executing a phased plan to reduce scheduled flights at forty metropolitan hubs, the country’s busiest by up to ten percent. Whilst this will alleviate some of the pressure on employees who are calling out over sheer exhaustion and inability to afford to make the commute to the airport, we don’t suspect that this manufactured crisis, following on from several others that the Republicans and administration refuses to own, will cause the Democrats to cave and concede to reopening the government for a short stint of a few weeks until the stalled continuing resolution runs out again on 21 November. It is a pain point and makes for dramatic reporting and the flying public—only about twenty percent of the population—if they do travel, travel during the upcoming holidays, potentially disrupting a percentage of planned vacations and reunions, but Democrats did not fold over the prospect of military service members going unpaid or nutrition supplements running out and certainly won’t for the inconvenience of some when there’s more at stake. Besides the administration found solutions, albeit temporary and of questionable legality for those other problems they caused and expect to get praise for fixing them—only prolonging the shutdown, cobbling together for optics and vital services so the majority of the public remains in splendid isolation and cushioned from the effects of a dysfunctional and indentured federal workforce.

baumol’s cost disease (12. 856)

Courtesy of NPR’s always engrossing Planet Money podcast, discussing inflation and the various factors that contribute to the rise of the costs of goods and services, pointedly discussing another sector—which I think should not be taken as letting those usual suspects, private equity and their ilk, off the hook for being caught holding the bag—pointedly discussing some of the pain points of veterinary medicine, we learn about prolific economics writer and namesake of the above effect in labour markets. In collaboration with economist and academic William Gordon Bowen (who also founded the digital library JSTOR), William Baumol (also a prolific sculptor and painter who helped create cultural economics, calling art collecting and patronage a gamble and presaging its fetishisation as an investment , evinced by these animal spirits) described the outcome of stagnant productivity countered with rising wages in certain sectors, which cannot innovate or advance on the same terms as other fields. Enterprises that rely on manufacturing and mass-production or mass-distribution for instance have benefited from technology that allows for automation and removing human labour from the picture. Other industry’s reliant on human expertise and interaction, like veterinarians, concert violinists, barbers, educators and carpenters, are unable to increase their output at scale. And while arguably some trades and professions—especially in the US, teacher—are not so richly compensated, their higher wages are sustained by cross-demand at the expense of profit because of their essential nature and lack of serviceable substitute. Furthermore unwillingness to offer competitive pay would led to a scarcity of expertise and prevents the greater misalignment that would come of no one entering these fields.  

synchronoptica

one year ago: Democrats concede (with synchronopticæ) 

twelve years ago: war-mongering, jackalopes plus more on Germany’s Fateful Day (9 November)

thirteen years ago: the G20 and the US elections, marine parasites plus an R2D2 scooter

fourteen years ago: questionable dental hygiene 

fifteen years ago: bisphenol in everything 

sixteen years ago: need-to-know news